Fate Has A Place
by Crazy4Hope
Summary: Therapy has a way of getting into someone's mind, but when your partner is dead because of something you did therapy is your number one enemy. Tags to Aliyah, talks about Somalia breifly and has LOTS of TIVA!One-Shot, edited and explained more in A/N!


**This story takes place during the summer Ziva left NCIS, when Tony shot Rivkin. The therapy session occurs after the team found out the ship she was on sank. The very end takes place this season. Sorry for and confusion and I hope this helps. This is a one shot! I hope you enjoy**

Three months. Three months 18 days, 9 hours, and 14 minutes since _she_ left. One week of this crap Gibbs called mandatory therapy and Tony was about ready to kill himself.

Not that he hadn't already had those thoughts. After all putting himself in the line of fire was what got him one month of this stuff.

"So Agent DiNozzo, tell me about yourself?" the shrink, Dr. Franklin, asked.

"You have my file, why don't you tell me about me?" Tony rolled his eyes and retorted.

She turned her baby blue eyes to the note pad and scribbled something before looking back up.

"Anthony Demarco DiNozzo Junior, mom deceased. Dad lives in New York." she flipped to the second page, "seems like you have quiet the record, expelled from three boarding schools, arrested for breaking and entering but the charges were...dropped," Dr. Franklin gave one final glance at his file before slowly closing it and setting it on the table, the only thing that sat between his chair am hers, "then, two months after finding out your knee injury cost you your basketball career, you got in the car with you friend Josh William, who was also drunk and somehow your car got wrapped around a tree-"

"that was NOT my fault!" Tony fumed, anger pulsing through him.

"So you do have something to say," she quirked an eyebrow.

"I have lots to say."

"Well then go right ahead."

Tony sighed, "This is stupid."

He tried to control the way his chin quivered slight as the doctors eyes soften, he hated that look. The same look he had gotten ever since that small hope of finding _her_ had been crushed. Abby, McGee, Ducky, Palmer, hell even Gibbs gave him _that_ look.

"no, stupid would be going to see a suspect without telling anyone or having your gun-"

Tony slid further back into the leather couch, clearly she has more to say, he remarked , "I just merely went to a place he had been seen in before and suddenly I'm depressed and suicidal."

"Well are you?"

"no." he snapped.

"Agent DiNozzo, I'm going to be completely honest, as of right now Director Vance is debating on _if _you should even be allowed on desk duty, so I suggest you start saying something that could give me any insight to your feelings on what has happened with your partner Ziva."

"What do you expect me to say?" Tony asked earnestly, trying not to let the mention of her name throw him into a daze.

"Start with telling me about your partner." Dr. Franklin suggested.

"McGee is a good friend and a good agent, what else is there to know?" Tony shrugged, pretending not to know what she was talking about or why she was giving him a look that suggested at the rate he was going, he would never get his badge back.

"Not that partner. Tony, do you mind if I call you Tony?" Tony just gave another shrug, "tell me about the first time you met Zia, what were your thoughts?"

"She walked in and asked me if I was having phone sex," Tony smiled bitterly at the memory, but then the other memories came. The ones he had been trying to block out for over three months. Well three months, nineteen hours, and twenty four minutes.

Dr. Franklin must have sensed his sudden change in demeanor, because suddenly, in the mix of black and white memories he was getting he could hear her voice calling him back to reality. A reality without Ziva.

"Where did you go?"

"John Paul and Sophie, Dr. Frank-"

"Call me Leah."

"Leah, I am not suicidal and see no reason why I have to go throw this."

"Tony," Leah scooted up in her seat, "you have been here for over twenty minutes and have yet to be able to say your partner's name, and every time I mention her name you flinch."

"I do not," He argued.

"Okay, tell me the truth then, tell me exactly how you are feeling about Ziva."

He knew Leah was telling the truth, and even after it was pointed out to him he couldn't help but flinch.

"Leah, have you ever lost a friend?"

Leah nodded, her auburn curls bouncing slightly, "yes I have, but mine was just a friend. From what I have heard you and Ziva were not just friends."

"She loved someone else," Tony said sadly.

"If I have learned anything from the information I was given on you and Officer David would be that you two had an interesting relationship."

"Of course, we _were_ friends, she was my partner and I had her back. She had mine. We had a relationship, but not a romantic one."

"You regret this," another stupid note being taken.

"I regret many things."

"Killing Michael Rivkin, is that one of them?" Before Tony even knew what was happening, he heard the sound of glass shattering as it hit the wall.

"What do you want me to say? Ziva is gone! She is dead! _I_ should have had her back! She should have never stayed in Israel. She shouldn't have had to put her life in harm's way every single day because Mossad is so dangerous. I shouldn't have gone to her apartment that night, I should have trusted her!" Tony yelled, not caring who could hear, but after a deep breath his voice dropped to a chilling tone, "but now she is dead. Because of my mistakes."

"Please, sit back down," Leah soothed, and Tony found that following along with what she says might help him get out of the hole he just seemed to dig himself in. Well correction, the hole was already dug for him when he decided to go on a suicide mission, "Tony, you blame yourself for what happened to your partner. It is _not_ your fault. She made her own decisions."

"This wasn't her fault either," Tony admitted.

"How do you figure that?"

"She has always wanted someone to love her enough to never see her flaws," Tony smiled faintly as he thought about a conversation they once had on soul mates, but as quickly as the smile was there, it had turned into a frown, "but really she just wanted her father to be proud despite the choices she had made, but after she came back from Tel Aviv she started changing..."

Leah smiled, her expression letting Tony know she was glad he was making progress, "changing how?"

Ziva's smile suddenly took up that vacant place in his mind, "she wanted the lies to stop."_I'm tired of pretending_, "I should have listened to her. I should have paid attention to the signs."

"Signs?"

Tony sighed and slumped further into his seat, therapy was really starting to get on his nerves.

Well, He corrected himself, it has always gotten on my nerves, "Listen _Miss Franklin,_ Ziva is gone. She was my partner, she was finally happy, but I took that away. I have accepted my fate." He made sure to say her name clearly and without flinching, even though the way her name coming off his lips sent a pang of hurt through his chest, he still made sure not to show it.

Three months of accepting she left had been hard enough, but finding out that maybe, just maybe, the reason she never called or emailed wasn't because she still hated him, but more because she was somewhere working on something her father probably forced upon her had made that feeling of uselessness lessen. But that was until the truth was revealed.

Ziva David was dead.

Ziva David was dead because of his actions.

"_Mr. DiNozzo, _I think it would be best if you calm down and sit," Leah's voice was forceful and

Tony looked down at her, he hadn't even realized he was standing until she had spoken.

"I remember the look in her eye when she had just gotten back. There was something I couldn't understand, but now I do."

"It was because of Rivkin."

Tony nodded, "but the events that caused her to leave were because of her choices."

"So you are saying Ziva is at fault for her own death?" Leah asked incredulously and Tony couldn't help but cringe, because wasn't that what he was saying. It sure as hell isn't what I'm thinking, Tony growled inwardly.

"It is not my fault."

The sureness of his words surprised even himself, but by the way Leah was looking at him told him she wasn't buying his lies, "now how many times have you told yourself that over the past three months?"

Tony looked towards the window; the sky was turning a mixed shade of orange and red.

_"Where are you going?" Tony questioned as he watched his partner stand abruptly and walk out of the restaurant. He quickly paid the check and grabbed their leftover food before making his way out the door._

_"Ziva, what are you doing?" She turned around, her brown curls falling down her back as she casted a backwards glance at Tony._

_"I am going to sit and enjoy the sunset," She didn't even give him a chance to reply before taking his hand in hers and pulling him down to the ground._

_After about five minutes of silence and many bites of their unfinished sub sandwiches Ziva spoke again, "Tali loved sunsets. She especially loved the mixed colors they made. Orange and red were her favorite."_

_Tony was so caught up in the moment of her admitting something personal to him, that it took minutes before he finally responded, "Yeah so did my mom."_

Tony blinked rapidly, how is it that their relationship got _so_ complicated _so _quickly? Anger boiled within him at the thought of this, how could she not mention the fact she was in a relationship? Could she honestly not see what she was doing to him?

Somewhere deep down he knew the truth, he knew he had feelings for her before the picture of

Rivkin had ended up on her desk. He had feelings for her before L.A.

Yes, Tony knew all these things, but the thing that really hit close to home for Tony was that it _was _his fault; he chose to ignore the signs. Now where these signs that Ziva really did need help?

That was something Tony could never get an answer to-

"Tony? Why don't you tell me what you are thinking instead of bottling it up?"

"Let's just say I do decide to tell you what I am thinking, what are you going to write on your note pad thingy? Because trust me, if anyone knew what was going on in my head I wouldn't be allowed anywhere close to back on the field."

Tony laughed, trying to make this into a joke, but he could tell Leah knew otherwise.

The silence was unnerving for Tony as Leah debated on what to say, he couldn't decide if finally caving was something he regretted or not, and he found himself flinching slightly as Dr. Franklin spoke. "You do not know that. If I understand correctly your team is more of a family. They all have thoughts on Ziva's choices and her death, but you are the only one who has chosen to react differently. And by reacting differently I mean none of them chose to do stupid things. They chose to move past it. They chose to mourn. Officer David is dead; you being reckless isn't going to help anything. Now I can tell you this all I want, but it will not help until you accept it as the truth."

"They did not have the same feelings for her," Tony said it under his breath but Leah heard him.

"Explain."

"Abby thought of Ziva like a sister, Ducky viewed her as a granddaughter, McGee saw her as a sister too, and Gibbs. Well maybe it was because his daughter would be close to the same age as Ziva, but Ziva was Gibbs daughter, if only..."

"If only she had of figured out she had Gibbs respect and approval, then maybe she wouldn't have had to do things she didn't want to do?"

Tony nodded.

"But you left out the most important person, yourself, how did you view Ziva?"

Tony was sure Dr. Franklin heard his intake of breath, this question, a question Tony had found running through his mind since before this May was a hard one to answer.

"Nothing matters now." Tony looked down at the paisley printed rug on the ground, "she isn't on this earth, so why should I be?"

"I am not going to insult you and say I actually know what Ziva would have wanted, but from what I heard I would think she wouldn't want you dead."

"No, she might of been a killer, but that was before she came to NCIS. She wouldn't wish anyone dead now."

"So why even suggest that you not being on this earth would be an option. You have other family."

"She is the one who matters. She made me a better person, she wanted a life. She wanted a husband and kids. She wanted happiness. As crazy as this sounds, I guess...well I guess I wanted to be the one who could give this to her..."

Tony rested his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands, "I can't do this. I can't live knowing I am the reason she can't have any of this." he felt his tears fall onto his lap, "maybe...maybe I was jealous. I should have wanted her to be happy."

This time Leah placed down her note pad and moved so she was beside Tony, "this is not your fault. This is not your partner's fault. You have to accept that, I know Ziva wouldn't blame you for any of the things that happened to her."

Tony ignored her comment, not wanting to completely lose it in front of the shrink "I'm not going to get my badge back, am I?"

Leah sighed when he spoke into his hands once again, "I see no reason why not. I will suggest two more weeks of mandatory therapy, and maybe a month of desk duty, but I think maybe you should take some time off after that. Time to accept what has happened."

Tony lifted his head, "I don't want to accept this. Ziva shouldn't be dead."

Leah smiled, "maybe not, but it is not your fault that she is."

Tony smiled down at the woman in his arms, her brown eyes were filled with sorrow, "I didn't tell you this for you to be upset, Zee."

Ziva nodded slightly and shifted on the couch so that she was now resting her chin on Tony's chest and could see his emerald eyes, "I shouldn't of left."

He leaned down to press a kiss to her head, "If I learned anything from those excruciating months, it would be that what had happened was no one's fault. Yes, maybe some people's actions led to it, but I am just glad you aren't dead. Because if you were I don't know what I would have done."

"I understand, but Tony, please, if anything ever was to happen to me, don't do anything stupid. I love you too much."

"Well, Ziva, those months changed me. I could never stand the thought of any harm being done to you, and just knowing what happened to you in that desert..." Tony looked at her, "it kills me Ziva. It kills me knowing I gave up so easy and ended up finding you too late."

Ziva scooted up so she could place a kiss to his lips, "you, Anthony DiNozzo, are a good man. You found me and without you by my side, well I don't know what I would of done, because those months changed me too."

Tony smiled, she was right. Ziva wasn't the same person, of course after all they had been through in the two years following Somalia had really changed Ziva also, but it was for the better. And as he looked down at the Israeli beauty in his arms his thoughts were confirmed, the changes in both of them were for the better.

"Hey Zee-Vah?"

"Yes Ton-ey," she said through closed eyes.

"I'm glad you suggested this. I mean the whole we need some time..." Tony smirked with Ziva's eyes flew opened.

"That was not what I meant!"

"Sure, sure, well we are in Paris, again, thanks to you." Tony watched as Ziva shrugged, not even bothering to argue, and looked outside the window to the orange and red that painted the sky as the sun set behind the Eiffel tower. "I love you Ziva."

"I know Tony, I love you too."

**A/N Thanks guys and I hope you liked it! Please leave a review :)**


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